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{
    "id": 521167,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/521167/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 221,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Prof.) Nyikal",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 434,
        "legal_name": "James Nyikal",
        "slug": "james-nyikal"
    },
    "content": "Kenya benefit? Kenya is very rich now but the majority of Kenyans – over 50 per cent – are poor. This is because we think privatisation will cause the trickle-down effect. It does not get to the people. When I went to university, I did not pay school fees but the per capita income of this country was lower than it is now. The per capita income is now higher but we cannot even pay school fees for our children because we have put everything in the private sector. The companies are heavily indebted. We are not asking ourselves what went wrong. Some of the people who managed these companies are in high positions in Government. We are failing to address corruption. We are saying modernisation will be expensive but now we are in a grave situation. The COMESA protection is actually gone. So, we have to look back. We are talking about privatising yet since the law was enacted in 2005, nothing has happened. In the sugar industry, we have two examples. Mumias Sugar Company was privatised. We are being told that it was privatised in a wrong way. Today we read in the newspapers that the people of Mumias are suffering. We are saying, just revive that one alone. Will it give the answer? Last week I was at Kibos Sugar Company. It is private. I have been there twice and it is not paying farmers. Look at this one, in terms of the equipment and the land, the land belongs to the people and what is proposed now is that there is nothing being sold other than the land. Do you want people from other places go there and buy those large tracks of land? The best way to go round it is to first fight corruption as a country. Secondly, we must recast this Report in such a way that the people from those areas can own those factories even if it is through cooperatives. Giving 51 per cent of the shares to a strategic investor and giving only 24 per cent to the people in a manner that is not organised will cause problems. I have difficulty supporting this privatisation in the form that it is now. We must go back and look at it in terms of the equipment and the land that is there, and in terms of participation and ownership by the people in those areas. Thank you, hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker"
}